disjunct
by bitterberries
Summary: Laxus listens to Jellal talk about Erza.


**rating:** T

**pairing:** jellal x erza

**d****isclaimer:** i do not own fairy tail.

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**summary: **laxus listens to jellal talk about erza.

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**disjunct**

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"You've been up here for hours," a fully suited Laxus says loudly, stepping into the moonlit threshold of the palace terrace. He holds two chilled beers in his large hands, and gestures them forward with an almost bombed grin while he walks and whistles cooly. "The party's missing you man."

"I'm just getting some air," Jellal dismisses quietly, turning his head to stare back at the sky.

"Seems more like hiding to me," Laxus retorts, placing a shivered bottle of _Ember _on the railing in front of him. "I saw you for a couple of minutes, walked around, went back, wondered why you weren't with Erza, and I just figured you went to take a long piss, but _obviously not_."

Jellal sighs, blowing a warm fog into the frigid air. "You're drunk, Laxus."

"I'm sober enough to listen," he says seriously, but the stern demeanor is killed with a resonating belch. Jellal smells the sweet alcohol, rolls his eyes, and Laxus holds up his palms innocently, his unopened drink being loosely held around by his thumb and index finger. He slowly positions it next to the untouched one still in front of his friend, and now there are two, waiting side by side to be chugged. "Okay,_ fine_, I won't drink anymore, but you will."

Jellal eyes it carefully. "I don't drink."

"Yeah, but you know, I'm not letting you leave here until you tell me why you're sulking like a priss. Alcohol makes it easier, so drink up."

"No."

"Why not?"

"Didn't I just say that I don't like drinking?"

"You're too uptight," the blonde snatches back his bottle gruffly, nearly causing its partner to tip over the balcony and fall to the earth below them. Catching it with a grunt, Jellal then furrows his brows towards the bulky mage, who, having already popped open his own beer, takes an impassive swig of it. "Just like Erza, but she drinks sometimes," he says.

Jellal remains silent. Instead of replying, he leans and crosses his arms over the railing again. He flickers his sight to the bronze cap of the bottle, rubbing it shiny of its fresh thaw with nothing more than his thumb and an inscrutable expression.

Laxus merely stares at him for a while before taking part in Jellal's original actions, which was to look at the scenery before them. Stars glitter the midnight sky, blinking and glowing in a gradual panel of silver. The only source of light is the moon, and Laxus fixates his view and lets it reside there for the longest time until he hears a big _crack-sizzle-pop._ With wide eyes, he finds a blank Jellal throw a reflecting beer cap into the empty night.

"That's littering-"

"I danced with her," he cuts off with a whisper, grunting as the cold beer trickled down his throat. "We were talking and then we danced-"

"You danced? With _Erza?_" Laxus's face turns red and he starts to laugh, clapping the hunched man hard a few times on the back and earning a couple of coughs in response. "That's some suicide attempt you pulled there. Erza's a fucking _beast _when she dances, did she break your leg or something?"

Jellal barely smiles, but it's there, and when Laxus sees this he hums a little too thunderous, drawing his friend out of his brief trance. Jellal's expression softens tenfold as he pays a back glance to the blonde. Hiding his problems wouldn't help at all, it seemed. He sighs. "No, she didn't break my leg."

"What'd she do then? Kick your crotch?"

"No."

"Then what did she do?"

"Nothing... I-...I'm not hurt. It was good," his voice dies to a quiet whisper that sounds nothing short of regretful. "She's a very skilled dancer."

"That's not something you see everyday," Laxus whistles, tilting his drink to his lips.

Jellal does the same. "Well, we were outside."

"Oh?"

"Yeah."

"Then what happened?"

The incoming silence is merely filled with the sloshes of beer, tumbling crickets, and a propelling breeze. The words that flow discreetly out of Jellal's mouth seem to spark with disturbance, and by the time he's finished, Laxus's beer bottle is empty. He squints his grey eyes as he looks down at it, shaking the bottle vehemently and being met with nothing but a few drips. He inwardly groans to himself. "Who kissed who?" He asks, flipping the item to confirm it's completion.

"I-I don't know, we both leaned in."

"Did you run away?"

"No," comes the immediate response. "I just kind of..."

"You ran away."

"No, I didn't _run-_"

"Whether you ran away or not, you're still _up here,_" he remarks. "And I'm willing to bet that you've been up here since."

"So what if I have," Jellal takes the last gulp of the sweet alcohol, feeling his nerves soften. It's easier to speak now that he's somewhat numb, but he can't control the hesitation and unadulterated tension falling from his words. "It doesn't matter what I did, it was for her."

Laxus does a shameless, _whatever you say_ and leans over the railing beside him. "You know, I'm pretty damn sure Erza has a thing for you."

"..."

"Don't you feel something for her?"

"I do," Jellal murmurs, his heart battering against his chest. It won't cease in its thumping, and if anything that beer seemed to have made it worse than before. "I love her."

"Love?"

"I've been in love with Erza for as long as I can remember, Laxus. It's stupid. But that's something that won't ever leave me. It'll be here tomorrow, the day after tomorrow, it'll stay here and stick with me until I die."

"Shouldn't you be happy that you two kissed then?"

Jellal runs his hand through his blue tresses tiredly, fingering a few strands before huffing and chuckling bitterly to himself. The breeze feels soothing. A gale of wind rushes through him, bombarding any type of red flush on his cheeks, killing the awful perspiration somehow rising on his nape. He speaks with a clear mind.

"Erza deserves better."

They don't hear the person walking onto the balcony below them. Erza, in exhausted, feet aching glory, clanks through the glass doors, holding up her dress, her hand moving up to untie the sweaty black tie lodged around her hair. She shakes out her head and kicks off her tall heels, feeling the softness of her red curls fall on her neck before padding barefoot across the cold stone of the terrace.

"How does Erza feel about it?"

She stops midway, chocolate eyes flickering upwards.

_Was that..._

"She'll be happier without me."

"You don't know that," Laxus says.

"She has to be," Jellal sighs. "She has to."

"How do you know for sure?"

"I don't," he murmurs to Laxus. The blonde watches as the man gazes reminiscently towards the stars. Jellal shakes his head. "But it's not my place to ask her. It never was. I know what you're thinking, I know it's a stupid moral, but life isn't meant to be fair. You have to work for things you want. Some are privileged, some aren't, some don't even need to work for their needs. But that's the thing. It doesn't matter how much I try. And there's always going to be that one thing you want, but you can't have, no matter what you do. Even if you don't give up, you won't be able to have it. For me, it's not _a thing_, but a person," Jellal mutters solemnly, his voice morphing into something tight and gravelly.

"There aren't any words to describe how much I love her. But even so, I can't have her. I wasn't born with that privilege. Even if my magic centers around constellations, I will never be able to alter nature, I can't rewrite me and Erza, we just weren't written in the stars. I can love her from a distance, and only hope she'll be happy."

He pauses for a moment. "I could just go on about her, you know? She gave me hope during a time where I fully lost it. She could have killed me then, but stupidly, she didn't, even though I had hurt her in the past. To know somebody has that much faith in me..."

Jellal places the beer bottle in his hand on the ground before shoving his palms into his warm pockets. He drops his head slightly towards the floor, a tender grin tugging at his chapped lips. Laxus sees the way the weak light in his emerald eyes grows. "She's brave, strong, caring, absolutely beautiful... and she's very brash and aggressive at times," his chest rumbles with very faint laughter, "-but that's just Erza. She makes me want to change myself. I feel stronger when I think of her. When we kissed during our dance, I simply gave into the spur of the moment. And in the end, I walked away. Even though I knew I would always be at my happiest being with her, the experience also told me that I didn't deserve that kind of joy. She's light itself, she doesn't deserve trash like me, she deserves better. And I'm fine with that.

"I wouldn't be alive if it wasn't for her," he whispers. "She saved me. The least I can do is save her."

Laxus's expression is unreadable. He doesn't reply for the longest period, and Jellal simply waits, his face slowly fading into a color of red.

With one hard movement, the blonde clears his throat, scratches his head, and then punches his friend on the shoulder before heading out towards the patio entrance. "...I think I'm going to need another beer," he exhales. "You're a coward, you know that?"

Jellal swallows the lump in his throat and pulls up his chin. It's a fact.

"I know."

Somewhere in the soft quietness of the wind, Erza slides down the nearest wall, her breathing erratic, slow, silent.

Dirt smudges on her blue dress, but she doesn't care, all she does is listen. She listens to them in voluminous silence, hiding under the balcony shade above, feeling her heart shatter while she simultaneously debates on whether to wipe her tears or to just let them fall. Her head lethargically leans against the cool stone wall as the consciousness in her joints weaken.

All she can do is clench her fists. In frustration and _in realization_, Erza gnaws on her lower lip with quivering teeth to keep her sobs from breaking, and gazes into obscure nothing.

_Why can't you see that you're enough?_

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_note:_

_._

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_it was originally supposed to be smut that i was posting, but halfway through writing i was just... _

_i think i wanna write angst tho_

_and boom_

_PLEASE LEAVE REVIEWS, it would help me very much. Thanks for reading ilu all k_


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